Can you register a goat you don't have a history for?

Only two of our goats are registered, but I don't have the papers. Shouldn't there be a tattoo somewhere? The others we have no history on. They are all purebred, I think our nubians are grade - don't know that that means? I don't know. But I have had folks who know goats say our nubian doe and Boer buck are fabulous. can I register them?

you can ONLY register an animal that there is a paper trail on, IF they were registerd, and IF they were tattooed, then the tattoo will often be in the ear or on the under side of the tail (in LaManchas) and then you can contact the Club they are registeredwith and have them send you the papers matching the tattoo number,

BUT thats alot more work than just simply getting the paperwork from the people you bought the animials from.

other wise if there is NO tattoo, and No way of contacting the people you bought them from that SHOULD have the paperwork, you cant register any of your animals that you have right now, what you CAN do is breed them to a Registerd Buck (only pure bred bucks are registerd) and then you can register any doelings you get as 50% of what ever the buck is, even if you breed to the same breed the does are already, and even if your does ARE pure you can only Register what you have a paper trail to show for it.

What you need to do is contact ADGA. A friend of mine just had some goats registered native on appearance. She had another member come to her place, look at the goats and sign a paper saying that they conform with breed standards for that animal. It worked for her. It would be worth your time to have it checked out. Hope it works!

i wonder why they would do that? i guess along the lines of if it looks like a duck, but hey its their club, what was the percentage they were allowed to call them? surely they are not being called pure on looks alone?

Native on Appearence is for the purpose of showing mainly. To show a goat in an ADGA sanctioned show, they must have at least NOA papers. It does *not* classify them as pure, just states that they do conform to such and such breed standards. You still have to breed to a registered buck to start 50% the female offspring as you said.

Yep, you can have does "recorded" (as opposed to registered) with ADGA if they meet the breed standard and have no mini or Boer blood. Like prairiecomforts said, you just need an ADGA member to look at your goats and sign off that they meet the standard for the breed.
They will then be Grade Nubians and shown in Recorded Grade/Experimental classes. If bred to a ADGA registered buck, their offspring will be registerable. It takes a certain number of generations of breeding to make her offspring "American" instead of "Grade".

With all breeds except Lamachas, a goat with ANY recorded grade ancestors is American, not Purebred. They can never be graded up to purebred- purebreds must trace every single ancestor back to the original imports. I'd say the vast majority of registered goats are American.

All breeds of livestock started somewhere by looking at individual, unpedigreed animals and saying, "Yep, that's a Quarterhorse" or "that's an Angus."

The tattoo would be in the ear. Get a strong, bright flashlight and hold it against the back of the ear so the light is shining through the ear towards you, and look around for those tattooes. You'll still need to find the breeder and cajole or bribe them into giving or sellign you the papers, but it's worth it.

Here if you dont know the history of a goat, you get a "judge" to look at your goat and if she comes up to the standards in appearance etc you can register them as "Appendix D" which is like a Grade...Appendix D,C,B,A....then numbered section which is Purebred.